About Me

I'm a big reader. A couple of years ago, I read Harold Bloom's The Western Canon and decided to start trying to read the books listed in the back. The problem then became that a lot of them draw heavily on the bible, which I had not read. I decided the translation I wanted was the King James, as it has had the most influence on the English language. So I bought The King James Study Bible, which bills itself as a conservative, but broad, study method.
Har! It turns out this particular bible was originally published by Jerrry Falwell's Liberty University. It also turns out that NO annotated KJV takes a secular or even ecumenical perspective, they all come at it from the evangelical protestant viewpoint. If I wanted to understand this sucker, I would have to do it myself. Hence a blog, to clarify my thoughts on what I'm reading.
Any time I talk about Jerry, I am referring to Jerry Falwell and his band of biblical editors.

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Thursday, June 3, 2010

2 Samuel, Chapter 11

David has sent his men off to war while he rests up in Jerusalem. One evening, David takes a walk on his roof and happens to look down and see a hot chick bathing. That's so damned clichéd. He asks around and finds out her name is Bathsheba and she's married to Uriah the Hittite.

Because he gets off on cuckolding other men, David sends for her and sleeps with her, then sends her home. Of course she gets pregnant and tells him about it. Probably not wanting to take responsibility, he recalls Uriah from the front, and tells him to Go down to thy house, and wash thy feet (v. 8), which, just so we're clear, is code for: fuck your wife and we'll just call it yours. He even sends along some meat to get them in the mood. Uh, try chocolate and strawberries. But Uriah is either stupid or gay, and he camps outside the castle. David hears and goes down to encourage him to go home, but Uriah babbles some bullshit about how the ark and the army and all sleep in tents, so why should he get to go home to walls and comfy sheets and a wife? Anyone else's gaydar just spiking off the charts, here?

Uriah hangs around for two days, until a desperate David gets him drunk, but he still refuses to go home to his wife. Nope, instead he takes to his bed with some of David's servants for a big gay orgy.

David gives up and sends him back to the front with a letter for Joab, his general, instructing him to put Uriah into battle and get him killed. So Uriah goes and is killed. Joab sends word to David. Bathsheba also hears and goes into mourning. The minute she casts off her widow's weeds, of course, David marries here, but we are warned ominously that god is nevertheless displeased.